Working Well with Volunteers

For all those with responsibility for 'volunteers' in churches across the West Midlands. This online event is designed for all who (seek to) recruit, retain, and oversee people in voluntary roles in C of E churches. The event will include:

• Keynote input from the Revd Richard Steel
• Breakout room workshops (a choice of 2 from the list below) 
• Conversation and discussion 

The Revd Richard Steel is the author of 'Building up the Body: Encouraging, equipping and enabling volunteers in the church' (BRF 2013). Richard's experience includes parish ministry, Communication roles for Blackburn diocese and the Church Mission Society, leading the Mission Team for the Lincoln Diocese and helping set up a Community Association from scratch. Other experienced practitioners will also contribute to the event.  

Workshops

1 Help! I need to find a churchwarden… (Alison Maddocks, Dean of Smaller Churches) 

• Understanding the increasing challenge of encouraging people to take up key roles 
• Considering options that might make it easier 
• Thinking about who might be able to help 

2 Enabling good practice in working with volunteers (Daniel Parnell, Director of Learning, Worcester Cathedral) 

• Fostering good working relationships (especially around beginnings and endings) 
• Enabling and maintaining standards appropriate to the person and the role  
• Ensuring safer practices in all that we do 

3 Tricky conversations: handling issues - and people - with care (Richard Steel, Keynote Speaker) 

• pre-emptive action - working from good policies, structures, and relationships 
• conflict - facing it and dealing with it 
• the place of pastoral support - for you as well  

4 Distinctives of volunteering in a rural context (Julia Curtis, Rural parish priest) 

• how ways of belonging affect volunteering in rural places 
• awareness of the rhythms of agricultural seasons 
• working with the grain, and defining helpful boundaries 

5 The Generation Game: the perspectives of volunteers of various ages (Simon Hill, Youth Officer) 

• What’s in it for me? How volunteering feels in different stages of life  
• Intergenerational volunteering – working together well, reaping the benefits of youth and maturity  
• Mind the gap – paying attention to some pitfalls and potential sources of conflict.  

6 Working with volunteers in a larger and/or civic church (Peter Stansbie, Pershore Abbey) 

• Exploring aspects arising from the scale of a larger church  
• Possibilities arising from wider community volunteering